Shades of Perfection
by BlackRoseGirl666
Summary: When Max met Dylan things began to fall apart. But, now that Max has fallen for Dylan, things won't just fall apart. Oh no, that would imply that there will still pieces to be picked up again after it ends. RATED FOR: Violence, Kissing, Swearing and more.
1. Taken

The physical pain had stopped almost as soon as it had begun. The emotional? Not so much.

She had to make a choice.

Fang understood that.

That was the funny thing about understanding, though; it never made things hurt any less.

In some ways Fang guessed it was his fault; he was the one who had gotten caught in the first place, wasn't he? Although, he had been trying to protect her when it had happened. He was always trying to protect her.

Why?

Why did he always protect her? He knew she had tried to protect him, too. Or at least she had, before _he _had come along. Or at least ... he hoped she had. Fang couldn't be completely sure; something in his head was making it hard to remember things.

Why did they betray him? Fuck, _how_ did they betray him? Goddammit, he couldn't remember! Why, why couldn't he remember? What was going on? Where was he? Why were there so many questions and no answers?

He didn't even care anymore. It took too much energy to care and he didn't have much of that in stock.

It wasn't like anything important could happen while he was asleep, right? If there was something important someone would wake him up, he was sure of it, or...at least that's what he thought.

No! He had to fight it! Fight what though? See, this was why he wanted to just go to sleep; there weren't so many questions.

Gritting his teeth, Fang focused on what he could remember, which, admittedly, wasn't much.

There had been fight; that wasn't unusual, Fang remembered. It was normal for him – them – just as normal as breathing.

He caught flashes of gunfire, wild kicks and hard punches. He winced; he was sure he had been on the receiving end of more than one of those. He focused more, this time catching sounds and scents.

There was a harsh, wolfish smell that made his nose burn; the acrid smell of gun smoke filling the air. A tangy, coppery taste filled his mouth and crawled down his throat with every breath and the sticky, repugnant smell of sweat and death made his eyes tear.

He heard growls and screams, cries for help and of anger; a snarling laugh of self-satisfaction.

He caught snippets of images, too. But they were harder to focus on; harder to hold onto and understand.

A flash golden-brown hair; a crumpled form colliding with another upright one; an elongated, wolf-like face squished up in a snarl. He saw a bloody teddy bear in an angle costume, falling from a little girl's hands and hitting the dirt some hundred feet down. There was an image of a small dog with wings biting into something's leg. An explosion, so bright and fiery it was hard to look at.

He knew he had a family out there somewhere, though he wasn't sure what had happened to them…

The blood, the screams; feathers of all different colors, some of them blood stained, and the huge flying monsters.

_The Erasers._

His mind pulled the words out of the mists that cluttered his head, linking them with other, more terrible images.

He caught flashes of people in white coats doing inexcusable things to small kids who were tied down and screaming, of the bloody and bruised kids being shoved into small cages.

Faces eventually came into view, his mind spinning in an effort to catch them, to find something that _stuck_ inside of him.

_Angel._

She was screaming and calling his name, even though she had so much of her own pain to deal with. Her blonde curls were matted with blood and bruises covered her small, pale face. Wet, teary baby-blue eyes were outlined heavily with muddy bruises and purple skin. Older memories of a tinkling laugh, a mischievous smirk/smile, a puppy-dog face that melted the hardest of hearts rushed forward; his mind's sad attempt at helping him cope.

_Gazzy._

The first flash was of a pair of shocked baby-blue eyes that matched his sister's, Angel. His clothes were bloody and dirt-stained; his small, thin arms curled around Angel, bottom lip spilt and trembling, incoherent murmurs getting louder and louder as he was pulled away. Happier things – a crazy grin, a silent but deadly back-ended blast that had the whole room gagging in seconds, wires torn from a toaster fashioned into a half-made bomb, still needing the batteries from a Mickey-Mouse clock to work – also flew to the forefront.

_Iggy._

Glassy, opaque eyes lit with angry fire like the bombs he loved but couldn't see; tall, lean body trembling with explosive rage; cries for revenge, promises of rescue, encouragements to fight, curses none of them had known directed at all of them: him, the Erasers, himself, the other him and her. Most of all her. The sweet smell of his Flock-famous banana-chocolate chip pancakes, mad cackling as he heard another explosion light up the sky, conspiratorial whispers to Gazzy, and a smirk that made them all back away slowly.

_Nudge._

Wails, loud and long and painful. Pretty brown eyes leaking tears, her face contorted into hurt and anger, mascara smeared down her cheeks as she cried, body crumpled as she tried to pull against her Eraser captor only to be hit and twisted again. A thousand different words a minute, loud laughter as she twirled in the air, complaints about how hard it was to apply her new pink lipstick mid-flight.

_Dylan._

The other him: looking stunned with his mouth gapping and blood falling sluggishly from the side of his head. He was quiet; amongst all the noise he was _so_ quiet. Even if he and Dylan had never had anything in common in the time they'd known each other, he was certain that in that moment, their shock had mirrored the other's. Warm smiles, happy attitude, annoying as hell.

_Max._

Earthy brown eyes: guilt-ridden, crazed, desperate, and remorseful but he knows she'd do it again. Blood coated clothes. Her body shakes, her spindly arms are wrapped around herself; she doesn't fully realize what she's done until the Erasers start to laugh.

Her shriek pierces the air the exact moment he loses consciousness.

* * *

Fang bolted upright, his dark eyes flying open as he thrashed against the straps holding him down. The lights blinded him as he fought against his bonds, tearing into the tender flesh of his bruised chest and straining the gushing bullet wound in his arm.

The Erasers around him jumped to their feet, two of them forcing him back down onto the gurney where he was lying, their claws leaving new indents in his shoulders; another left through the door at the front of the room.

Realizing he wasn't going to be getting out of this quite yet, Fang let himself go limp though his pride wouldn't let him do it without a few choice words at the mutts holding him down. Surprisingly they didn't retaliate, but the way their holds on him tightened told him they wanted to.

Fang winced as the claws dug in deeper. _Badly_, Fang amended mentally, _they'd like to retaliate _very_ badly._

But they weren't. Strange. Dismissing this as typical Eraser stupidity and/or some new and undoubtedly fucked up way for Itex to control their pets, Fang quickly turned his attention to scanning his surroundings for weak spots.

Said surroundings were a rather small room made up of grey metal walls with nothing but him, the thing he was tied to, and a few built-in metal benches where his "guards" were sitting. The doorway one of his captors had dashed out didn't actually have a door and was more of a slot than anything else, just large enough for a six foot tall man to squish through.

Oh, and he was tied down. How could he forget to mention that? Fang smirked sluggishly; his head still a little cloudy from whatever it was that had knocked him out.

It appeared Itex was learning, if the dimensions of his 'room' were anything to go by. It was entirely too small to fight one person in – never mind three Erasers – and the straps were strong enough to hold him down indefinitely.

If the rushing sound coming from beyond one of the walls was anything to go by, he was probably in some kind of aircraft, too. That sucked royally, because with the pain he was feeling in his wings and arm, he didn't think he'd be able to fly normally anytime soon, let alone do any kind of daring airborne escapes.

Fang was drug from his James Bond-esque musings by the sound of footsteps on the shiny metal floorings of the maybe-plane, which must have made up the entire exterior floors outside of his room as well. One pair was heavier, and more of a thuggish thump while the other was gentler, more like a tap than an Eraser stomp.

"Hello, Fang."

Fang felt his eyes bug-out at the sight of the woman standing just outside the metal entryway, his missing Eraser guard at her side and a caring, sympathetic smile on her pretty, motherly face. She was dressed professionally in a black skirt and a white lab jacket and looked as though nothing could be more natural than her being there with a needle in hand.

Fang's stomach began to swirl with dread as she stepped closer to him.

Max was officially in panic mode.

Fang was gone and it was all her fault.

Her Flock was falling apart and it was all her fault.

It was _all_ her fault.

She had been so sure she could save him that she hadn't even felt guilty when he had pushed her out of the way of that Eraser; she had been so sure that the attack's main focus had been her or Dylan or Angel that it had never even crossed her mind that it would be Fang they wanted.

Max tried to smother a sob, tried to stay strong and lock it away. But 'tried' was the operative word, and as the memories attacked her again she found that she couldn't lock them away. No, they were out for blood this time.

Just like everyone else.

It had started as a normal enough day. They had woken up at the crack of 10 A.M. to scrounge for food and start flying their way to her mom's house so that Mrs. Martinez and Ella could meet Dylan when Hell had started.

She smiled a little at that – not the Hell part but at the thought of Dylan – and used the heels of her dirty palms to rub the tears away from her face.

Dylan who, unlike Fang, was sweet and kind and agreeable with everything he did and was still enough of a challenge that she didn't get bored in his company. He was possibly the best thing that had come out of this whole mess with Itex.

Her smile became bitter; Dylan, who Fang hated and avoided and didn't trust.

Dylan, whom she had chosen over Fang.

Shaking her head, Max took in a deep, choked breath, mentally trying to will away the crushed look in Fang's dark eyes when she had announced to the Flock about her and Dylan being together, the grim set of his mouth when Nudge and Gazzy had rushed up and hugged her and Dylan, spewing their congratulations. How Angel had turned with a sad smile at Max before taking Fang's hand and walking away with him. How Iggy had followed the pair after throwing an ugly scowl in Max's general direction.

Maybe that had been the start of it. Not the fight, at least not the physical one, that had created this mess. The start of when the Flock had begun to shift, to break apart, to pick sides.

They'd been just about an hour away from her mother's house when they had first spotted the Flyboys. They had been flying since they'd finished their meager breakfast so they had been pretty tired, but they'd still managed to get through the swarm without much injury.

But then the Erasers had descended.

Max remembered how tired she had been, how worried she'd been about Dylan and Angel, thinking that Itex was about to try and take them from her, that she hadn't even noticed when Fang had swooped in front of her, taking a bullet to the arm.

His blood had sprayed bright red all across the tight purple tank top she'd barrowed from Ella, right across her chest, where the bullet would have hit if Fang hadn't gotten in the way.

She absently fingered the browning neckline; she still hadn't taken it off.

It was at that point, she guessed, on some animalistic, instinctual level that she had recognized that things were about to get bad.

After taking the shot Fang had frozen – maybe from the shock, or the pain, or just from exhaustion – but he had frozen for just one second.

It was just plain dumb, in Max's opinion, how much could happen in a second.

He'd dropped maybe thirty, maybe, at most, forty feet before an Eraser – a big, burly mean looking sucker – had wrapped his arms around her best friend.

_(Because yeah, even after everything that had happened between them that was what she still thought of him as. Her best friend; her confidant, her wingman. Always _hers_.)_

She'd heard him cry out as the Eraser dug his thick fingers into the wound. She'd heard Iggy, who was fighting several Erasers on his own at the time, yell – no, _scream_ – at her to move.

But she couldn't.

_(Because she'd spotted something that still sent this kind of icy, paralyzing fear spiraling through her heart, numbing her limbs.)_

She'd seen Dylan; an Eraser on either side of him, holding him tight by his arms, while another had pushed a gun against his temple.

Everything happened in a blur after that.

Max thought she might have screamed, or at least said something because for a second every one of her Flock had looked at her. Then they'd been captured and held midair with purposely sprained wings, a little over a hundred feet above the ground by Erasers who'd have no problem with dropping them.

Then one had started speaking.

He'd offered her (_her,_ _just her, not anyone else_) a choice. Power. The ability to save someone. But they hadn't given her enough!

He'd had his other Eraser buddies bring Dylan and Fang forward.

Dylan had looked defiant but resolved. Struggling and lurching in his captor's steady hold but not acting desperately, not without dignity. He wasn't injured – there'd barely been a scratch on him – if it had been anyone, anything else holding him she was sure he could have gotten away.

But these Erasers were stronger than anything she'd faced before. She knew that from experience.

Dylan had looked angelic, she guessed. Angelic and strong and idealistically righteous.

He was a sharp contrast to Fang.

Fang's dark clothes had been wet and slick with blood; his hair had clung to his face in stringy, sweaty pieces and his skin had been whiter than she'd seen it in a long time. His rich black wings had drooped like dead weights by his sides and, heck, the only thing that hadn't looked dead on Fang were his eyes. Coal black eyes that burned with hot emotions like wavering trust and anger.

So much anger.

Fang had looked scary, in that one moment. Like a demon, or an angel fallen from grace.

The Eraser had said one word after several seconds of silence. She'd replied no less than five minutes later.

"Choose." It had been in a sturdy, confidant, maybe even mocking voice. And then he'd proceeded to rip her life apart.

Max fell to her knees, her hands sinking into the decaying leaves and earth of the forest floor.

The Flock had put up camp a little further into the woods and she had left as soon as it was done, not being able to take the accusing looks they had been casting at her. The only one who seemed to understand her now was Dylan; even Angel, her baby, had turned on her.

Max sobbed again; a deep, gasping sound that came all the way from her toes. None of them understood! None of them knew what it was like!

Her mind went back to just after the Eraser had told her to choose, the understanding resignation in Dylan's eyes and the heart wrenching trust that had solidified in Fang's…

The sympathetic pain and expectancy in the Flock's…

She hadn't even realized she'd said anything until Nudge had screamed. And then that horrible strangled noise Fang had made as they knocked him unconscious and thrown him into that helicopter-thing…

The look of shock in Dylan's blue eyes.

The horrid curses that had tumbled from Iggy's lips.

Angel's sobs and Gazzy's silence. Total's pained howl. Her own strangled cry when reality began to hit her over the head.

Max was full out wailing by now; rocking back and forth in the dirt as reality and emotion mashed up her mind. Everything was falling apart! And everything was so wrong and it wasn't _fair_!

The last thing Max caught as she drifted into unconsciousness was the echoing words of the Voice:

_"You should have chosen differently!"_

* * *

**Hello everyone! I hope you all liked this chapter and want to review it, as reviews are very good if you'd like me to continue! Now, just so you know this is not FAX story. I plan on pairing Fang with either Maya (i.e. Max2) or Ella. Whoever doesn't go with Fang I'll probably pair with Iggy and Max will be with Dylan.**

**Anyway, I hope you all liked this chapter and are looking forward to the second! And make sure to thank the lovely Xx-Twitch-xX for all the great editing! **

**Please Review!**

**Bye!**

**BlackRoseGirl666**


	2. Enemy

The bright ceiling lights glared down softly on the woman standing behind the tinted glass windows of the newly built observation room. A soft, sad smile creased the woman's face as she ran her eyes over the subjects below her, making her look more like the mother most knew her as and less like the fearsome scientist she was becoming.

With a vaguely nostalgic feeling floating in her chocolaty eyes, the woman looked over the pale, scarred, skin; broad shoulders, and elegant features that made up Subject 2's looks.

His coal black hair just barely reached his shoulders when it was free, though currently it was cleaned, trimmed and pulled back from his face in a loose ponytail. His features were screwed up with discomfort despite his unconscious state and the measures she'd taken to make the transition as comfortable as possible. His mouth was obviously used to frowning but she knew it could form a heart-warming smile when he wished it.

Her eyes trailed to the sterile white bandages that were wrapped around his arm and felt herself wince in guilt as she watched that clean cloth steadily become more pink. She couldn't believe how bad the damage had been when they'd finally got him back to base and started patching him up; it had looked like someone had dug their fingers into the hole left by the bullet. It had taken her hours of careful surgical work to make sure it healed properly and wouldn't give him issues in the future.

It wasn't hard to imagine her fury when she'd found out someone actually _had_ dug their fingers into the wound, nor was it difficult to imagine the perpetrator's punishment.

But, thankfully, that was all over with for now. She had finished the operation personally and perfectly; there would, blessedly, be no drawbacks from the stupid mutt's actions that could cause any long-lasting harm. Sure, it would hurt much more than would have been necessary, had everything gone to plan, and it would take a longer time to heal, but in the big picture it wouldn't matter.

Heaving out a sigh, the woman turned her eyes away from the black haired boy she'd started to care for like a son over the years and instead placed her attention on Subject 1.2: a girl whom she did not know at all but looked like an almost identical copy of someone the scientist did know rather well, all things considered.

The girl was just as young as the boy, barely looking anything over sixteen despite her height and other physical developments. Her hair was shoulder-length, straight, and cut with feathered bangs and tips. Streaks of black cut through her brown-blonde hair, helping even more to define her as something different from what she had been based off of.

Other differences could be found as well, the scientist mused. Such as the makeup this subject was wearing, matched perfectly to the red uniform and second-hand heels that had made up her clothing. The fact that this one had managed to forge documents and get herself a job, something Maximum had never bothered with. The way this subject was social, while Max was suspicious of everyone. The list could go on.

The woman sighed and pulled her thoughts away from the other winged girl currently not in her possession and resumed her concentration on her double, Max 2.

She was tall and willowy, like all Avian Hybrids, and her skin was tanned evenly which matched with the fact they'd found her in California. Her nails were painted bright red and cut short and her arms and body were strong and defined, suggesting that despite working at a low paying, little known restaurant, she still managed to keep herself in shape.

Despite all the differences she had with her original copy, her wings were identical to Max's; a tawny off-white with specks of darker brown, very beautiful all in all. Her file said her eyes were brown like Max's, too.

The last figure in the line she regarded softly, with sadness and pride. Subject 8. Her daughter.

Her girl was small, thin, pale, and shared the scientist's chocolate hair and eyes. Unlike the other two subjects, she had not a mutation in sight even though her bones and insides possessed what was needed to be considered an Avian Hybrid. The wings had simply not formed, leaving her daughter a faulty experiment and unneeded by Itex.

It was blind luck that had saved her child from being 'retired', as so many other failed experiments were. She'd been there, had heard the corporation's plans, and saved her child from them.

And now, she would be correcting a genetic flaw and giving her girl the wings she'd always wanted.

Giving a dim half-smile to the three unconscious teens below her on the operating floor – each one strapped into a kind of modified dental chair, with IV's and other various wires plugged into their bodies – she hit the speaker button on the observation room desk and called in her medical prep teams.

The three teams descended upon the teens like a pack of piranhas on an unlucky animal, each team going to their designated subject and working quickly and efficiently to check oxygen leads and IV's, which in only a few seconds would begin pumping reparative drugs into the subjects' bloodstreams, along with additional sedatives to make sure everything kept going smoothly and painlessly.

Moments later, when the prep teams were finished, another round of surgeons entered. These would be the ones performing the actual procedures, while the other team of doctors assisted or served as an additional pair of hands, should one of the first set feel they were too tired to carry on. The woman would not be pleased if there were any mistakes during the next delicate steps and she had gone to great lengths to make sure it didn't happen.

The woman left the room shortly after the procedures began taking place, the sight of two of the teens twisting and withering in the chairs while her own daughter was moved onto a gurney and wheeled away making her stomach flip too much for her to stay. Her only comfort was that things were better now than they had been; better now that Apollo Corporation had taken control.

There was no doubt about it, Itexicon had done some amazing things and their ground research was staggering, but...most people in the scientific community felt that they had gone about the wrong way of doing things.

The treatment of the creations, the number of illegalities, the death camp mentalities, the purely insane staff members, and those horrible creatures created to hunt down the escaped experiments, Erasers, and Flyboys and monsters created from normal humans… It chilled her soul and made her disgusted with science at large.

The sins of Itex's endeavors were as many as they were black, their successes tarnished by insanity and pain. It was hard to find any light in their advances that hadn't been tainted in some way, that hadn't been made gut-wrenching by the hands of a madman. It was just all so hopeless.

But slowly, ever so slowly, reparations were being made.

It had started when Apollo Corporation, a dummy company of US Government's, had bought out Itex for some astronomical total of money, quickly followed by the arrest of everyone who was currently or had at one time been involved with Itex, including the scientist herself. Over three quarters of those taken in had been trucked off to prisons around the world and had never been heard from again. Others, such as herself, had been offered another way to make up for their crimes.

More specifically, they had been offered jobs within Apollo Corp, she herself being offered the position of CEO. This had given her the right to do whatever she wished, so long as it had the stamp of approval of the Apollo Corp president, whose identity shouldn't be too hard to guess given who exactly ran Apollo Corp.

Under her supervision the Erasers had been tamed, the Flyboys dismantled, parents had been tracked down, though sadly most had been killed after Itex had received word escaped experiments were trying to make contact with their families. Many of Itex's bases had been dismantled, other's completely renovated. New staff – teachers and instructors for every level of school and several different extracurricular activities – had been hired with the intent of turning the subjects they could find into well-rounded people, perfectly suited for Apollo Corps'… purposes.

Max 2 – or Maya, as she preferred to be called – and Fang were just the beginning, her own daughter also. They were to become the first generation of something new; something legal, something _good_.

Dr. Valencia Martinez smiled a little as she came to the large, black doors of her office. It seemed thing were finally starting to look up again.

* * *

Maya groaned as she shifted in the… something she had been placed on. Stifling a wince when the tight bonds on her chest applied too much pressure on her aching ribs, the pained girl decided it might just be worth it to stay still.

Wait.

Bonds?

The first swirls of panic solidified in her veins, freezing her as the memories of the last night she could remember flew to the forefront of her somewhat cloudy mind.

She had been walking back to her dumpy little no-questions-asked apartment in a tiny, equally no-questions-asked town in California from her job as a waitress at a local restaurant. It had been late, around nine or ten that evening, and they had attacked her from behind.

It hadn't been much of a fight, she thought bitterly. There had been about twenty of them coming from all sides and, while she was able to fight pretty well, better than the ever-perfect Maximum if she had anything to say about it, she couldn't handle that many on her own.

In the end she'd been rendered immobile by one of the huge ones who had managed to elbow her in the gut and knock her breath out, probably breaking a few ribs in the process and maybe some other bones, but she couldn't be sure.

_The throbbing is all the same, anyway,_ she mused depressively.

On reflex she scowled at the thought. Ever since escaping Itex, she'd forbidden herself to think about anything that might be considered weak, including whining about injuries. Then she realized that scowling hurt too and dropped the expression.

Muttering a rather colorful string of swearwords she had picked up from the Erasers she had been surrounded by since birth (if you could call waking up a teenager with full motor skills but no memories of birth), Maya forced herself to pull her eyes open.

Wincing at the blinding lights that surrounded her, Maya deduced that she was in for some kind of experiment if the needles, antiseptic, and doctors were anything to go by.

She mused after another few moments of uninterrupted consciousness, _I guess they don't know I'm awake yet._

Maya smirked privately to herself. This was one of the things she had hidden from the doctors since she had been (for all intents and purposes) a child; her amazing ability to shrug off any and all types of poisons and drugs within hours of administration.

It was her secret and she planned to keep it that way.

Heh, big lot of good it did her, though. She was still tied down and ignorant as to why (sans the obvious) they wanted her here.

With much effort Maya managed to turn her head to the left, getting for the first time a decent look at one of her fellow prisoners. The girl was also tied down, though she looked pretty human, and after a minute of thinking Maya decided she didn't recognize her. Perhaps she'd been picked up off the streets as a comparative subject?

The girl was young, probably thirteen or fourteen, with dark brown hair that would have been pretty if it wasn't cut in such a boring fashion. Her face wasn't anything especially pretty, but it was still pleasant to look at. With the right makeup and earrings she might have even passed for beautiful, Maya thought absently. She probably wouldn't get the chance to find out, though. Itex wasn't known for letting 'comparative subjects' live long.

Mentally chastising herself for thinking such shallowly morbid thoughts in the face of possible death, Maya moved on to more fundamental things.

The girl was short, nearly pathetically so, reaching maybe five-four or five-five feet tall with a stick-like frame, having obviously not come into her curves yet. There wasn't a callous on her and her nails were trimmed and un-chipped, though not painted.

_Maybe not a street-kid, then_, Maya reconsidered, _an orphanage reject?_ Maybe the girl had been a child donated by one of the scientists seeking favor within the corporation. It wouldn't have been the first time it had happened in Maya's experience and it would explain why Maya had the nagging feeling she recognized the girl. Family resemblances and all that.

Narrowing her eyes for a better look Maya deduced that the girl hadn't spent long as an Itex doll, either; and not just because of the lack of wings/other unneeded-for-normal-life appendages.

Her reasoning for this was A: most everything in/from Itex had some kind of muscle mass. You either got it from the physical testing or it was engineered into you, or you got it on the off chance you were able to escape and were currently on the run.

Reason B was that from the tanned skin Maya could see, the girl didn't have a mark on her. No one lived in/left Itex without a mark; not even Maya when she had been their golden girl.

And her last reason? That would be that nothing in/from Itex looked as normal-human-like as this girl did.

Having lost her interest in the girl, who she'd finally decided was just the daughter of some low-level scientist or a random kidnap victim, Maya turned her attention to the last in their little line up, expecting another nobody like Cocoa (nicknamed thus for her chocolate-coloured hair) only to find the face of someone who greatly piqued her interest.

Longish raven black hair was pulled back to reveal his more-than-good-looking face. His dusky midnight black wings were strapped firmly to his back – much like hers – and bandages were wrapped around his left arm, which must have been bleeding, as she could see some places where the bandages had turned a reddish-pink.

It was, unmistakably, Fang – Maximum Ride's go-to guy and the hottest mutant freak Maya had seen outside of the X-Men.

_He's gotten taller_, Maya thought airily. He was probably a little closer to six-foot-four or six-foot-six now, and his arms – and the rest of him – looked much more developed, the contours more notable and touch-inducing.

Forcing her more carnal interests to the back of her mind, Maya instead let more practical questions than 'I wonder if his hair is a soft as it seems?' flow to the front. Had she missed something? The last time she had checked Fang had been traveling with (and with Maya's luck, most likely loving) one Miss Maximum Ride: the world's resident mutant heroine and apparent protector of the environment.

So why the hell was he in this place?

Granted, he looked a little more strained than the last time she had seen him, even in his K-O'ed state.

He was paler for one, with darkish bruising under his eyes and a tension furrow between his brows she didn't think had been there the last time she'd seen him. That was reasonable though, wasn't it? Surely not all parts of life with Miss Maximum could be perfect, could they? Perhaps the pair had fought before they (she disregarded the thought Fang might be alone. Max would never let that happen) and their charming little Flock were grabbed.

Deciding she'd have to ask him about it – assuming she got the chance, not like she would seek him out or anything – later, Maya maneuvered herself so she was once again facing forward and thus staring at the ceiling. The _really_ boring ceiling.

With a silent sigh Maya let herself drift off. After all, it wasn't like there was much else to do. And besides, she was practical enough to realize that she wasn't getting out of there anytime soon, so she might as well conserve her energy for when she did have a shot at escape.

The fact that thoughts of Max's dark-eyed wing-man clung to her thoughts all the way to unconsciousness was of no consequence.

* * *

**Yes, yes I know. I totally went to town with, well, pretty much everything to do with Maya (i.e. Max 2), but can you really blame me? She's one of the not-so-rare characters out there that don't get a lot of background time so I figured that as long as I kept it believable and in sync with the Max Ride timeline, I was still good. **

**Now, on to other things. This story is set about halfway through FANG and then ignores the rest of it and everything after, meaning that Fang doesn't leave the Flock (who else here hated that?) but Dylan and Max meet the same way but connect better than in the books (thus becoming lovers and Max basically forgetting about Fang until it's too late). Maya (see above) escaped Itex at some point and went on the run and Ella pretty much stayed the same until Dr. Martinez took her.**

**Also, everyone give a big hand for my beta Xx-Twitch-xX, who did awesomely at catching all my grammatical mess-ups! **

**Anyway, please Review!**

**Sincerely, **

**BlackRoseGirl666**


	3. Emotions

The second time Fang woke up he, thankfully, managed to retain all his memories. Though, he thought dismally, _that __doesn__'__t __mean __I __really __wanted __some __of __them_.

His mind was still trying to come to terms with what had happened in the last… amount, of time and, even if he wouldn't admit it anywhere outside of his head, he was still hurt from the betrayals, both Max's and her mother's.

Squishing down the horrible feelings of sadness and anger that had built up in his chest, Fang grudgingly decided to try and pull himself together. Forcing himself to sit up, which he admitted, he hadn't expected to be able to do, he gently rubbed his eyes open before taking in the room around him.

Surprisingly the room wasn't the typical white and metal monstrosity he was used to waking up in when it came to Itex, though really, it wasn't so surprising considering who seemed to be running the place now.

The room was medium sized, square and windowless with plush, back carpet floors and coal grey walls. He was sitting on a double bed with red sheets that had been tucked into the upper right hand corner of the room with a dark wood side table on his right.

A clean lined dark wood dresser stood across from the bed beside a normal looking black door, a matching desk with a laptop- _his_ laptop- placed on it along with what looked like a sketchpad and multiple other drawing things rested against the west wall. He spotted a closet (painted black) beside the desk and another black door standing beside it.

Frowning, Fang pulled himself gracefully to his feet. This was definitely not what he had expected upon waking.

Sure, he could do with a window or two but other than that he was pretty certain that he couldn't have done better himself design-wise.

Shaking his head Fang moved softly around the room, taking in more details than what he had gotten at first glance.

There was a red digital alarm clock on the dresser and beside that an Ipod, Fang recognized it somewhat despairingly as the one the Flock had all pitched into get him on his last birthday.

How had Itex gotten a hold of that? He wondered idly. He understood about the laptop, he had left it at Mrs. Martinez's, but he had lent his Ipod to Iggy a week ago with the promise it would be treated with the utmost care, had Iggy dropped it during the fight? Or had he been captured to?

Banishing the rather depressing thoughts Fang walked over to the dresser, he didn't feel comfortable with what he was in now, and besides, wearing bright colours made it harder for him to use his lone ability of, what he called, shadow shifting.

Pulling open the draws Fang breathed a sigh of relief, instead of the bleach white, borderline ninja-esque, jail clothes he was currently in the draws, at least seemed to be filled with stuff _he__could__actually__wear._

After extinguishing the smile that had tired to form on his face, Fang coolly slipped an indifferent mask into place and picked out a pair of black skinny jeans and a matching black T-shirt before going over to the closet and pulling on a pair of black trainers and a black hoody.

He hadn't even realized he'd dressed completely opposite to what Itex had put him in until he caught his reflection in the mirror.

Taking one last look around Fang scooped up his Ipod and stuck it in his pocket before seating himself in front of his laptop, a small smirk playing on his lips.

Pulling up his blog Fang cursed when he realized that- somehow - Itex had made it so that he could only answer the comments, not actually write anything new.

Growling, Fang flicked the computer off and took a deep breath. In hindsight it wasn't like he could do much more than just post a quick: 'I'm alive!' Anyway. He had no clue where he was and he did know he had a feeling that wouldn't have done much either.

Even if the Flock did get his message, which wasn't very possible as no one but Iggy and Nudge could use a computer properly, they already had Dylan to take his place. He wasn't needed anymore.

Biting down on his lip until he tasted blood, Fang pulled himself off the chair he had been sitting in and started trying doors. The first turned out to lead to an onsite bathroom done in the same theme as the room he had woken up in – he refused to call it his room- but the other door he tried he found it opened onto a tiny little octagon shaped room done in neutral creams.

The room was plain but for four doors (his included), each one with a little plaque on it and painted a different colour.

His was black with his name on it, the one to his right was white and said hallway (which he tried, only to find it locked), the one to his left was a surprisingly pretty bright turquoise and said Maya and then the one in front of him….

Ella.

Painted a faint, light purple.

* * *

When Maya had woken that morning, it had been by screaming.

The screaming had been young, piecing and distinctly feminine. It had scared her so badly that se hadn't even realised she had not been tied to her bed until she was already in the other girl's room.

Upon entering the prune purple and white cream room she had seen several of the Doctors lackeys all crowded around the bed in the centre of the room as they tried to move the young girl, whom she had dubbed Cocoa the last time she had seen her, on to the bed.

And of course, with her natural curiosity at an all time high and her commonsense still in shock, Maya had gone in for a closer look.

What she had seen had left her gasping.

The poor girl was wide awake and panic, fear and pain ripped up her commonly pretty face. Her hair was messy and clinging to her sweaty brow, blood was pooling around her shoulders, which were wrapped rather poorly in bandages, and tears clogged her eyes and nose and she wouldn't, _couldn__'__t_, stop screaming.

And those stupid Doctors were doing nothing!

In her rage, Maya had completely disregarded the 'Murses,' as she called the low ranking scum that fallowed the Doctors orders, and had started yelling at them to stop whatever they were doing and leave.

Maya reckoned that she must've looked pretty damn fierce because the Murses had left soon after that, only one of them staying behind long enough to give her some quick instructions on how to administer the pain medication and extra bandages he had placed on the desk as he left.

After the pimply piece of cowardly shit had run off with his tail between his legs, Maya had turned back to the girl.

It had taken Maya a long time to get her to breath properly, and even longer before she could speak without it coming out a gibberish. But once that was over the rest hadn't been so bad.

Once she had started talking to the girl, who turned out to be called Ella, it had been easy enough to get her to hold still so Maya could give her the shot, which had just proved to calm the girl down more, and then she had tried to change the blood soaked bandages.

Key word: Tried.

Boy had she been surprised to see the pair of small, brightly coloured wings that looked to be newly adorned to the girl body.

Ella had, of course, freaked out at her silence and started trying to move again which had only made her mangled back even worse and thus caused her to start crying in pain all over again.

So, after another ten minutes of calming the small brunette down Maya had made Ella swear that she wouldn't move until she came back and then went to the onsite bathroom and got a warm wet cloth before starting to gently clean Ella's new wings of the blood that had caked onto them.

During that time she had thanked the gods that she had watched so much TV during her evenings alone at home and thus knew what question to ask when trying to keep Ella's attention away from the pain of her newly borne wings.

After that, Maya had rewrapped Ella's new wings snugly to her back, and sung lowly to the girl as she drifted off into sleep, never once saying anything about the fact that Ella, the poor girl, had been topless the entire time.

Singing had always been something Maya had loved to do, even when she had just been newly created (she wasn't sure if a clone cloud be borne) she'd always hummed herself tunes until she had first heard lyrics and melodies.

Maya figured she couldn't be too bad at it either, at least she didn't think she was, no one who had heard her had ever complained about it.

Once she was sure the other was completely asleep, Maya had gotten up and wheeled the bloody, black gurney out of Ella's room, leaving the thing in the little connector room before telling the security camera (which hung blatantly right above the locked hallway door), and thus the security personal staring at the monitors, to come and take away the stupid thing.

Then Maya had ducked into her room (which she had taken a quick second to notice was done with vibrant turquoise walls and dark cream plush floors) and gone straight for the bathroom, striping herself of the ugly (now bloody as well) prison gear and jumping into the steaming water.

The after brushing her teeth quickly and grabbing a hairbrush, headband and hair elastic she had towelled off and snatched some clothes out of the dark brown ornate dresser.

After choosing a pretty, beaded brown knee length skirt with some black tights and a lacy turquoise tank top she had quickly brushed out her golden blonde and black streaked hair and thrown it back into a tight ponytail before grabbing, on complete impulse, a couple bottles of dark purple and fire engine red nail polish for her and Ella before picking up her bloody clothes and disposing of them on the gurney and then heading back into Ella's room.

And thus she had sat their, on the comfy lilac padded white wicker scoop chair beside Ella's bed, painting their nails and singing softly at random intervals for, if the clock was right, a little over three hours.

Plenty of time to make sure their manicures were perfect.

When he entered, she was singing the beginning words of "If I Die Young" by The Band Perry, but when he finally announced his arrival by making a small noise in the back of his throat, (as if she didn't notice the door opening), Maya was just finishing up the last words, making sure to draw out the last one, just like in the song.

Her hands never slowing from the rhythm she'd made while stroking Ella's chocolaty hair Maya turned her head back to face him.

His eyes widened for a second in surprise but not shock and for a moment- just one moment- Maya let herself feel let down. _He __must __have __been __thinking __I __was __Maximum_, she decided finally, not letting herself think about why there was only surprise, not sadness, in his eyes.

"Maya?"

It's tentative, as though he wasn't really sure if he _really_ was talking to a girl named Maya, but it made her heart soar. Finally, someone who didn't mistake her for Max! Maybe-

Maya made herself slam down on those thoughts immediately. It didn't matter if he knew her name, he still must have thought of Max before her, they all do, even Ella.

The first thing the petite girl had whimpered to her was a pathetic, "Max?" Maya had felt crushed at the tearful look the girl had given her when Maya had answered no.

But, she decided, that didn't matter right now.

"Yes, Fang?" She answered back in a tone that, even to her own ears, sounded just as tentative as his.

There was a second of silence before he spoke again, this time asking to come in. Maya just nodded her head and pointed him to the wicker chair by the painted white desk.

"What happened to her?" Maya paused for only a second before answering.

"They gave her wings." She heard the anger in her voice and, when she sent a sideways glance at Fang, she was mysteriously happy to see it reflected in his eyes, too.

Maya looked at him a little longer than necessary, even though she knew she must have looked confused. But really, there was something confusing about his eyes, somehow more so than before.

They were just as dark as last time, like the stone, obsidian, she knows she knows about but doesn't remember learning about. They glint the same as before, like a sharp knife under a full moon, but this time, they look harder, more pressured.

Like the diamonds she's never seen.

Pulling her eyes away from his was difficult but Maya managed it, fighting the blush creeping up her face down expertly.

Maya took a deep breath but the air caught in her throat. The space between them was stifling with its silence, so, after steeling herself for a minute, Maya decided to break it.

"Do you know her?" She asked, her free hand pointing airily at Ella. It seemed that she could only ask simple things today.

A small smile slipped onto Fang's face, his black crystal eyes softened for a moment before something like despair flashed through them, hardening them like ice again.

"Yeah, she's Max's half-sister on their mother, Dr. Martinez's, side. We've stayed at their place a few times." His voice was surprisingly bitter.

But Maya didn't put to much thought into that, she was still trying to file away the information, locking it away until she has time to deal with it.

Just like always.

Still, she couldn't stop herself from asking.

"Did you think I was Max? Is that why your voice is so bitter?"

"No."

His answer, for some reason, made her want to blush.

* * *

**Hello, everybody! I hope you all like this chapter! And if you do please Review! (Heh, I rhymed!) **

**Anyway, I had fun with this chapter! (It's so much fun doing Maya's POV, especially with Fang:) And I hope that you had fun reading this and that you are now eagerly awaiting the next chapter! **

**Please Review!**

**Bye!**

**BlackRoseGirl666**


	4. Dealings

_This is hell_, Maya decided dismally, running her newly painted nails through Ella's messy hair. _A pretty hell; but a hell all the same_.

After Fang had answered her last question, the one about Maximum, the silence had settled again. It hadn't been nearly as bad as the first but Maya had never liked silence, it reminded her too much of her days as an Itex tool, of the bland, white room they'd lock her in when they didn't need her.

It had been so quiet in there. So crushing. Especially during the nights when the lights went out and all she had were memories that weren't hers.

That was another one of her secrets, one of the ones that Itex (or anyone else) didn't know she kept.

While she may not remember everything about Maximum's life, she did know some of it. Not specific things like people's mannerisms or names or faces but the feelings and smells and ghost-like impressions her experiences left behind.

Like the pain of the beatings, of being alone, of the experiments and the feeling of a hug, something soft and warm, and the scent of melted chocolate. The feelings of belonging and loving and laughter, sometimes frustration and sometimes just plain relief. Little things like that that drove Maya, who didn't know much of anything feeling-related, crazy with envy.

That was one of the main reasons Maya liked to sing; because that was the one impression she'd never gotten from Maximum. It was hers and hers alone and it drove away the silence and memories like nothing else could.

So now that the silence had come back Maya did what she always had; she hummed. And whispered, and then eventually graduated to real songs. She'd gone on for hours, sometimes repeating lines or altering them or playing with the rhythm and tune, for what felt like centuries.

It had been pleasant.

Fang hadn't seemed to mind either, or he hadn't said anything at least. He'd stayed quiet, perched comfortably on Ella's desk chair and seemingly content to listen to her voice as she amused herself.

Then the doctors had stormed in.

They'd been wearing white hazmat suits with gas masks covering their faces, there'd been five of them and they'd all been armed with vaguely fire extinguisher-esque things strapped to their backs. When they'd flipped a switch on the nozzle something smoky and deathly sweet had swamped them and they hadn't had a chance to move before both her and Fang had been down and out on the creamy white of Ella's carpeted room, quickly loosing consciousness.

She'd woken up an hour ago on that very same carpet. Greeted by the slight of Ella's nice, lax face and a strange, odd feeling that had slowly sunk into her bones when she'd realized they'd taken Fang.

Now she was seated once again by Ella's bedside, almost like some kind of reoccurring growth.

_God, what a life_, she thought once again, this time bitterly amused as she twirled a length of Ella's boring brown hair between her fingers.

So here she was: young, beautiful, altered and fucked up enough to give that new diva who recently got herself locked up in rehab again a run for her money.

She was fifteen, a mutant freak without parents, papers (or any kind of identifications, really) or allies and trapped in some kind of (theoretically) subterranean luxury suit system owned by a league of (presumably) evil scientists bent on ripping her apart and figuring out how she worked.

Maya snorted quietly, how cliché was this? Fuck. All she was missing was a tall, dark saviour searching for her on the outside so that once he found her; he could pull her into his arms and lather her in steamy kisses.

Oh, and he'd be a prince too, and he wouldn't mind her wings and he would have never heard of Maximum Ride before and when he found her she'd be wearing a long, silky gossamer gown looking as though she'd just left a runway even though she'd been living in captivity for however long it took her prince to get his ass into gear and save her.

Ha! Oh, and she'd wind up being the daughter of some rich, but loving, Duke and Duchess who'd be every so grateful to the prince for bringing back their little girl and have absolutely no problems with the prince, who'd coincidently look something like a younger Ian Somerhalder, marrying their little girl.

And there'd be unicorns, cupids and lots of talking animals, too.

Maya laughed out loud as her little scenario played out in her mind. Boy, was she sad or what?

Shaking her head at her own attempts at distracting herself Maya carefully pulled her knees up under her chin and locked her arms around her legs before resting her chin on her knees, her gaze once again directed at little Ella.

The girl looked so innocent. Her small tan face was peaceful and pliant with her bangs falling nicely around her face. She even had wings now to complete the whole angle look.

Maya chuckled and took the girl's hand in hers, rubbing her thumb soothingly over the little brunette's smooth knuckles. She couldn't imagine what it was like to be in this girl's place. To be so completely normal and then have it all ripped away from you… and by your own mother, no less…

Poor kid.

_But at least she's not alone_, Maya's subconscious reminded her, _not like you are_…

"Don't worry, sweetheart." Maya whispered to the girl, "once Maximum finds out you're here she won't rest until your free and safe and every scientist in this place is bleeding to death for what they did to you. And don't even get me started on the Erasers. I don't know if even one will be getting out of here." Sure, she might be over-exaggerated just a bit but really, who was going to tell on her? Besides, from what she'd seen on TV and read in books and heard in songs, people liked it when other people told them they were important to someone else.

So with renewed gusto Maya continued on with her story, a story that included a harrowing escape from Itex, some kick ass powers that Ella had inexplicable control over, some Eraser ass kicking (because who doesn't love that?) and to top it all off, Iggy (she thought that was the tall blind one, he wasn't bad looking was he?) proposing his love to her.

Not bad for something to keep a girl amused, was it?

And she wasn't even going to try to get into why it was Iggy (who she was only semi-sure wasn't the ten-year-old with the farting problem) and not Fang (who she knew for sure was in Ella's age range and hot as hell) who was the male lead and sub-sequential love interest in her story.

Not. At. All.

"So just keep strong for now, okay, honey? Because you won't be here for long if any of us have anything to say about it." Maya finished; determination etched into her every word.

Smiling slightly Maya dropped the girl's hand back on her bed and left her perch, intent on going back to her room for a bit to catch a nap; if only to help waste time until Fang was back (because he had to be coming back- right?), when something stopped her dead in her tracks.

"Wait…" A little, tired voice whispered from behind her. Maya whipped around to find the girl sitting half way up in her pale lilac sheets, her little face strained.

"Don't leave me…" The girl whimpered and immediately Maya was on her way back to her side, mentally running through the ways she could keep the girl awake until Fang or a doctor showed up.

* * *

Fang watched with concealed eyes as Dr. Martinez, a woman he'd previously trusted, walked into the warm cream walled room he'd woken up in a few minutes ago.

Raking a disinterested glance over her sleek black skirt-suit and expensive-looking shoes Fang could only assume the life of a traitorous scumbag was a good one.

Or at least he did until he got up to her gaunt, teary face and ruined make-up.

A trick of some sort? Or perhaps even real remorse. Fang didn't know, didn't care either. He found that he didn't really care about a whole hell of a lot lately, even before this newest trip into hell. Fang snorted, he guessed getting screwed over did that to you.

Crossing his arms over his chest Fang leaned back in the informal black chair he'd come to already seated in, only mildly miffed that it was two bulky to rock on its back legs, and regarded her coolly.

Dr. Martinez smiled a little as she straightened up her papers but Fang just kept his face blank. He found it unnerved them more when he did that. _Takes less energy too_, he though blandly, putting up enough constant emotion to fuel glaring took a lot out of a freak after all, even one of his glaring-calibre.

"I'm not sure how I should start this, Fang." The "good" doctor said, her kind smile still firmly in place. It kind of made Fang want to hit her, screw chivalry.

"But I know you have a lot of questions," no duh, "and I don't believe anyone has taken any time to answer them before." Really? And where did she find that info? The _lab_ files and _science_ reports that had been kept on him since he was born?

"So I'm hoping you'll use this time to get them answered." She finished with another caring smile. Absently, Fang wondered if she practiced that smile in the mirror.

Seeing as he hadn't moved, Fang felt he should forgive her for the annoyed sigh she let lose ten minutes later. After all, this was the first time she'd been on that end of a Bird-Kid Interrogation; she probably didn't know just how _annoying_ they could be.

"Look, Fang." She said, all friendly pretences gone.

"I know you're a smart kid, living on your own for so long like you have makes you smart; doing it on the run, with little kids and God knows what else; just makes you more so." She smirked bitterly, "take it from someone who knows."

Her body langue was open but tense and her eyes glittered knowingly but Fang didn't fall for what she was putting out. So what if what she was hinting at was true? Like he gave a crap what her life was like. He just wanted to know what she was playing him for.

She closed her eyes briefly and her hand twitched; like she wanted to fist it but decided against it; Fang filed it away for further examination later.

I'm not saying you should trust me;" her eyes locked with his for a split second before snapping down again, "I'm just saying think about what I'm offering. Because that would be the smart thing to do."

Narrowing his eyes just slightly Fang bit his bottom lip. This was something new.

Whenever they'd gotten caught before Max had usually pissed the bad guy(s) off by now, meaning that whatever chance of bargaining with the baddies they'd had before was now sufficiently out the window. He wasn't sure what to do now that he was faced with a way of getting seemingly free information with next to no cost.

He just knew a few things, like the fact that Max would likely refuse and say it was a show of strength or something like that.

Another thing he knew was that he wasn't like Max.

"And what questions would you being willing to answer, exactly, Dr. Martinez?" He asked neutrally, his eyes focused on hers.

Dr. Martinez beamed. "I knew you'd ask that," she said, seemingly proud though Fang couldn't imagine why, "and the answer is anything that I can, Fang." She answered before taking a deep breath.

"This is supposed to be a show of trust, from my employer to you, as well as a way to set ourselves away from the horror that is Itex." As she spoke a new kind of light entered her brown eyes, Fang recognized it as similar to the one she got when she started talking about saving the world.

"Apart from Itex? So I take it your not working for them then." Fang asked, still neutral voiced though curiosity pounded at him. If she wasn't working for Itex than who was she working for? What were her employers' goals? How powerful were they? Why did they want Fang and Maya and, he assumed, Max and the others? Why did they feel they needed to rip apart Ella like that?

_Ella…_ her sweet face crumpled up in pain, her hair plastered to her forehead, her piercing screams…

What could she have possibly done to deserve that?

Nothing came to mind.

Dr. Martinez nodded vigorously, her ruffled brown bob bouncing. "No, I'm not. I work for the Apollo Corporation. A corporation working to clean up Itex's mess and put their…" her head tilted ever so slightly to the side, "creations" her head straightened, her smile was back in place, "to a better use."

Creations? Fang gave a mental shrug; he guessed it was better than freaks.

Not that that changed anything.

Fang gave her an acidic glare. "And how is attacking the Flock putting us to a "better use"? How is kidnapping Maya cleaning up Itex's mess?" He paused for a moment, his nails biting into his palms at the unexpected rush of anger. He shut his eyes and focused on shoving it away for a second.

Snapping his eyes back to Martinez's chocolate-chip-cookie brown ones he strengthened his glare ten-fold. "How was fucking with your own daughter any better than what Itex did?" He spit out viciously, darkly pleased when she flinched back.

"You must understand Fang," she said, her voice was small and sad, but strangely strong; Fang wasn't sure what that meant.

"These 'experiments'… they need to be kept under wraps. Ella knows about them, quite a lot about them, actually and that's my fault and I'm so, so sorry she had to pay for them like this but… it was the only way to ensure he safety."

She looked straight into his eyes; her hands were folded in her lap. "You can understand that, can't you? Doing anything to protect what's important to you? Because that's what I did." She took in a deep breath, swept a hand through her hair, smoothing it.

"Besides, Ella's always wanted to fly. Even before she met the Flock." She finished with a weird, bitter smile.

"They would have hurt her, then? That's why you messed her up. So that she'd just be another freak like us with just as much to lose, so she wouldn't run from you and give them an excuse to hurt her." Fang stated, keeping his voice low and melodic.

Dr. Martinez seemed to calm instantly, her eyes warming and the wrinkles around her mouth easing away. Fang hid his smirk behind a ghostly smile.

This was a trick he'd picked up when he was younger, at maybe nine or ten. He'd found that, when he tried, his voice could affect people. Whether it was calming them down or scaring them depended on his mood and purpose. It was one of the reasons why he didn't speak often as well as the reason why he was so good at calming Max down after on of her hissy fits.

Dr. Martinez nodded her head once or twice, mostly to herself, before she picked up speaking again. Her voice barely a ghost of a whisper; "I always knew you were the smart one, Fang."

He quirked an eyebrow, "you saying that there's a dumb one?"

The women laughed a little and shook her head 'no' but didn't say anything else on the subject; figuring he couldn't get anymore out of her (without turning physical, at least) Fang changed the subject.

"So," he asked, pushing himself up in the overly-comfy chair, "just what did you mean when you were talking about putting us to a "better use?" Fang said, making use of his natural sarcasm with the addition of air quotes and a decidedly dark smirk.

Dr. Martinez returned his smirk and pulled a good-sized manila file folder from the rich brown leather bag she'd come in with and laid it flat on the wood table that separated them before pushing it towards Fang.

Fang glanced casually over the folder before locking eyes with the woman again and quirking an eyebrow.

Dr. Martinez tilted her head towards the file, "open it. Inside you'll find what we'd like you to do."

"Like me to do?" Fang asked, wariness in his voice, "I didn't think I could do much for you; and besides, don't you have the Erasers to do your dirty work?"

Dr. Martinez just smiled reassuringly; "of course, but some jobs we need done need a little more… finesse, than an Eraser or robot or any combination of the two is capable of." She explained.

Fang nodded slowly, filing it all away in his head where he cloud look it over again when he had the time as he flipped the file open.

Inside he found several different pieces of paper and information as well as a picture of what looked like a small computer chip and a business card for some place he'd never heard of before.

He looked at Dr. Martinez again. She smiled back.

"You'd break in, retrieve the chip and then break out again. With your abilities my superiors thought you are best for the job."

"Hypothetically," Fang started, "say I agree to do this for you. How do I know this isn't a set up? Or that I'd be stealing something that could kill innocent, normal people? Hell," Fang mutter to himself, "how do I know you guys really aren't Itex? Or something worse?"

"We're covered by the American Government, that's how." Dr. Martinez stated, "if you don't believe it with one phone call I can have the President down here and you can hear all of this from him." She said, smiling in a serious sort of way.

"What abut the others? Ella and Maya?" Fang fired back, now more interested than anything else.

"They'd have their own assignments to deal with, and often times you'd likely work together," she stated. "The same will go for the Flock eventually, the next ones we're planning on going after would be Iggy and possibly Nudge, maybe Gazzy but, eventually, they all will wind up here and, depending on their answers, they will wind up working for Apollo Corp. Just like you and Maya and Ella." She finished confidently.

"Yeah? And how do you know we'll answer yes to all this?" Fang asked, leaning forward on the table.

And once again, Dr. Martinez smiled. "Because it will get you what you want."

Fang felt his eyes widen slightly.

She smirked confidently. "Maya will have all the cash and security she needs to live the life of the most privileged girl, with all the VIP treatment and parties that come with it. Ella will finally be special in her own eyes, different from everyone else. And all of you will get your freedom, of course." Fang raised an eyebrow, pointedly looking around the bland room with the large bolted metal door. Dr. Martinez laughed.

"What? You didn't think we'd keep you here forever did you? This is just temporary until we have all the bugs ironed out." She said, rather carelessly Fang thought.

"One last question." Fang said, his own smirk-smile curling his lips. "What's in it for me?"

Dr. Martinez got a look on her sweet, Hispanic face that reminded him of a test taker who was just asked a stupidly simple question.

"You get to be in control, Fang." She said softly. "You pick the assignments you do so long as manage doing about fifteen or so a year, you can go to school and get an education or you can simply do whatever in our off time. Every thing will be taken care of and no one will be able to force you into anything."

Fang ran a hand through his hair, leaning back into the chair again. This was big, he decided, something he shouldn't rush but… something was telling him to take it. He knew Max wouldn't but… he also knew Maya would. He'd only known her (_really_ known her) a day or so but he knew from the way she acted, doing her nails and hair so perfectly the minute she could, that if she got a chance to get of the streets, which had to be where she was living if she really had escaped Itex, she would take it. And what this place was offering… it was way more than just getting off the streets.

And what did he care about Max anyway? She'd picked Dylan hadn't she?

"If I agree I won't have to worry about be knocked unconscious at random hours, will I?" He asked, slightly teasing, mostly serious.

Mrs. Martinez (when she went back 'Mrs.' Fang couldn't remember) covered a snort. "No, no you won't have to worry about that anymore. We only did that because we were afraid that you'd act violently right off that bat, sorry." Her eyes twinkled merrily, "so can I take that you've answered yes, then?" she asked.

Fang looked down at his hands, pale and sacred from fighting Erasers and whatever else Itex threw at him, could his hands, could _he_, really do this?

Max would disapprove. Call him selfish and stupid.

Fang locked eyes once again with his ex-… whatever-they-were's mother.

"Yeah, you can take that as a yes."

And with that, Mrs. Martinez smiled the biggest smile he'd seen her use since he'd known her and got up to shake his hand. Fang returned the action, a ghostly smile of his own on his face, while his mind kept filing and running through things.

The farthest being what Max would think when she eventually found out.

The most recent whether or not he'd just made a deal with the proverbial devil.

* * *

**Wow, long chapter hey? But whatever, I had fun. Hopefully this chapter will get me a few more REVIEWS seeing as I only have two but whatever. Hope to talk to you soon.**

**Please Review.**

**Sincerely,**

**BlackRoseGirl666**


	5. Decisions

Maya stared at Fang, black-clad and energetic, with hidden interest as he paced back and forth in a line before Ella's bed. Said girl was propped up against Maya (who she had pulled into bed with her to use as a pillow), and gaping like a fish (albeit a rather tired, weary fish) as he explained what this Martinez woman (who was apparently Ella's mother) had told him.

When he stopped, black eyes glinting and a calculating look on his face, Maya just continued with her staring, though her mind raced behind her eyes.

She would take the deal. She already knew that. It didn't matter what they thought, if she had a chance to get away from where she was in life right now… a chance to go to school, have friends, dress how she liked - maybe even make something of herself - she'd take it.

Besides, she'd been created to serve as a weapon, trained as one, too; why shouldn't she get to put all of that to good use?

Her eyes scanned Fang, looking for a tell of some kind, a hint at what he was thinking; of what he was planning on doing. She got nothing. Not even a twitch.

That annoyed her.

Maya liked to be able to read people. And Fang, she was finding, she especially wanted to read; because if their was even just one little inkling in his eyes…

It didn't matter though, Maya reminded herself sternly. He was Maximum's man, wasn't he? It didn't matter that he didn't mistake her for Max, it didn't matter how he seemed so bitter when she'd spoken to him about the other blonde. He was hers. Maya needed to accept that.

But still her mind (or maybe it was her - _something else_) threw a small percentage chance in her ratios where he too picked this new proposition. Where whatever Maximum had stupidly done to make him so desolate stung deep enough to make him forget her.

To make him available for me…

The desperate little thought slipped by before she could lock it away with all her other Fang-Oriented thoughts. Far away in a small locked box in the back crevasse of her mind.

Hastily Maya directed her gaze away from Fang (who _must _have felt her staring by now) and down at Ella, who was still as pale and silent as always, accept now her brown eyes were open and lost.

_She'll be the wildcard_… Maya's analytical mind whispered to her. _She's the one you need to watch… _

"F- Fang?" the little brunette stuttered, her voice dry yet teary at the same time. "Are- are you sure… that doctor, that she was my mom?" She asked, her eyes open wide and more aware than Maya was used to seeing them.

Fang studied her a second but then nodded, "I wouldn't have said anything if I wasn't sure, you know that, Ella."

The girl closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Maya placed a hand on her shoulder. "It'll be okay, sweetheart," she whispered. "It'll all be okay, I know it." It was a lie, of course; Maya didn't know anything more than she did at this point, but the girl didn't need to know that.

Ella nodded jerkily and snapped her eyes open again before spewing out in a rush: "I'm accepting the bargain!"

Maya blinked slowly, a little shocked; _that was sure fast, _she thought idly, and rather unexpected as well. Maya had been expecting some big Maximum-esque hero speech about doing the right thing, not an agreement to join the "dark" side.

_Oh well_, she thought, drawing her nails through Ella's hair; _that just makes things smoother for me._

Not to mention less lonely.

"Well, that makes two of us." She said finally after a few-minute silence before cautiously flicking her eyes towards Fang for a split second. His handsome face was stoic as ever; his obsidian gaze as blank as slate and his sculpted mouth was half open in an attempt to speech, frozen there like a statue.

He closed his mouth after a second and his eyes flashed with something (shock maybe? She didn't know – it was gone too fast for her to tell) and looked about ready to say something but he was cut off before he got the chance.

"I'm so, so sorry Fang, but- but she's my mom!" Ella's mousy voice cried out. Her tears finally breaking as she began sobbing apologies to the only one out of the three who would likely refuse the all-important deal.

"Ella-" Fang tried but Ella just kept on going.

"And I know you think I'm stupid and- and Max would too, and, oh God, and Max-"

"ELLA!" His shout made both of them jump. There was dead silence for a second before his foreboding expression melted into a small smile.

"What I was going to say," he started, "before you picked up the waterworks, was that I guess your votes makes three of us." His smile had shifted to a mischievous smirk by the end of it.

Maya would admit, only in the safety of her mind or under pain of death, that for one brief second, she considered jumping up and kissing him. Just shoving their lips together and saying a nice, loud "fuck it!" to Maximum and anyone else who saw her do it and had a problem with it. She was so high with relief for that one second that it was only Ella on her lap that kept her from completely making a fool of herself.

Because really, for all her talk and bravado, she'd been terrified of doing this on her own.

Maya, despite everything she'd gone through, was a people person. A socialite. She loved talking to people and just being in someone else's company. She didn't know why; it didn't make any sense when you considered her life. When you did that you would think she'd be some rough-and-tumble hard-ass with femininity issues. Certainly not the skirt wearing, nail polish and purse matching princess she was at heart.

She'd been so scared that, despite all of this Apollo Corps's promises she'd just wind up a tool again. Alone and locked away and slowly emptying out of the things she had discovered that made her Maya.

But that didn't matter anymore. Because now she had Ella and Fang and even if this did turn out to be some kind of clever Itex set-up she'd have them to fall back on, no matter what.

So now that those fears of hers had been soothed all she had to do was figure out her next move.

And, she added mentally, where her sexy man in black (who Ella, now much happier than before, was now hugging out of his breath), Fang, would fit in to her game plan.

Because while she would bow to Maximum's claim on Fang when it existed (seeing as Maximum _had _got him first) it was clear now to even the blind that he could no longer be labelled as hers, meaning he was now open completely to Maya.

Maya smirked slowly, crossing her smooth, tan arms across her ample turquoise tank top covered chest.

Like the boy even had a chance.

* * *

Dr. Martinez smiled tiredly at the live-streaming, coloured, audio-video footage spilling from the sleek black computer before her.

It was late, nearly one am and she was in the newly, like ever everything else in this and ever other former-Itex complex, redone security room wearing jeans and a light purple, long-sleeved 'mom shirt' with white runners. Her hair was swept into a ponytail and, if you ignored the glass of red wine and its bottle beside the computer, you could probably almost have see her getting up a few minutes latter to go make cookies.

Valencia sighed and leaned back in the stuffed, leather chair situated in front of the screen. It would be a while yet before she ever got to bake cookies again.

Running a hand through her bangs the brunette laughed slightly when she watched Fang inform the girls about his choice. Her Ella looked so relived and joyful, it didn't surprise the woman when the girl gingerly manoeuvred herself out of the bed she'd lived in for the last week and hugged the boy around the middle.

The other girl, Maya, the sweetheart who'd taken such good care of her baby in her absence, looked equally relived, though you had to know how to look if you were to notice it.

It was in the way her shoulders tilted ever so slightly down, the way the firm line of her lips diminished and softened until it shifted into a small half-smile. The signs were so subtle and so few, Valencia would admit that even she, an adept people watcher from her days on the streets up into her current life, wouldn't have been able to recognize them if she hadn't trained herself to notice them.

She was different from Fang in that way, Valencia found. Because while both the teenagers had masks and both of those masks were impeccable, Maya wasn't as careful with hers as Fang was. She let it drop, just like she'd done now, without knowing if she was being watched or not. Fang, she knew, even from just her few meetings with him as a perceived enemy, would never have let that happen.

Valencia chuckled as the girl crossed her arms over her chest and smirked in a really wicked way Valencia recognized from her own wild collage years. This girl was so unlike her Maximum it was hilarious, and so ironic that it made her want to just pop open another bottle of wine and watch the sparks fly.

This girl, Maya, with her fashionable clothes and meticulous makeup and pretty hair and coordinated shoes was the polar opposite of her shaggy, unkempt Maximum and timid, typical Ella. It amazed her that they all had her in common as their mother (though she guessed with Maya it was arguable).

And lord, how they handled boys! Valencia was no blind woman; she knew Fang had been more than just 'interested' in Max and she'd thought for a good while that, eventually, they'd get together. Probably after much dancing around each other and awkwardness but eventually, she'd thought Fang would manage to knock some commonsense into her daughter and Max would snap him up like any sane blank-teen-year-old girl would.

But, she guessed from the things he'd said and the way he reacted to Maya (not that she thought he realized it, she was sure he would have done something by now if he had), that they might have something going on in the future.

The wicked smirk that'd fixed itself on Maya's face resurfaced in her mind for a moment and sent Valencia hurrying to fix her phrasing; if Maya had anything to say about it, then there would _**definitely**_ be something between them in the future.

* * *

Fang laid on his back in the dark of his room; eyes up and staring blankly in front of him, into what could have been never ending darkness if he didn't know that the grey ceiling was just a few feet above him, shrouded and hiding.

He'd come here as a way to escape for a bit, and grab a shower as well. He'd also changed into more comfortable seeing as he was planning on catching as much sleep as he could before whatever this place, Apollo Corp, had planned for them started up.

Resting his head against his bare arms, careful of his one injured arm, Fang let himself drift; let his head workout the angels and moves just like life was one giant chess board.

He wasn't naive, or desperate, enough to think that this… path, he had chosen would be easy. Easier then the other options sure, but nothing in life was every truly simple, least of all in his life. Besides, this Apollo Corp place wouldn't need them if the missions they wanted done were easy, if that was it they just could have used the numerous Erasers he was sure they had lying around.

But whatever, it wasn't like he wasn't used to difficulty; what was a little more heaped on?

Besides; a life threatening situation was child's play when up against going back to the Flock for the rest of his freakish life and putting up with Max and Dylan's winged Ken and Barbie romance. Just the thought of it was enough to make him gag a little in his throat.

He wasn't going to just pretend his heart was breaking, though. He still had a human heart after all, not an avian one and certainly not one made of rock like everyone seemed to think. Fuck. Did he sound like a sap or what? Heh, maybe if he'd been like this more around Max she wouldn't have traded him in for a softer model…

Shutting his eyes tight Fang tried to focus on something else – anything else – but the images wouldn't leave him alone, nor would the guilt or resentment.

The Flock would hate him for this. That thought alone was enough to make him want to drop and not get up again. Not Max, or one single member but the Flock as a whole. Hating him because he left them. Knowing he would deserve – does deserve, after all, he _had_ already agreed to the deal, right? – their hate because he _had_ left them…

God, what kind of sixteen-year-old was supposed to put up with this kind of shit? This wasn't some kind of normal teenage drama; this was stuff fucking adults talked to fucking doctors about to keep from going crazy.

Fuck, how he wished this _were _just some kind of teenage drama. That they were all ignorant to this serious type of shit and just worrying about getting caught by parents smoking weed or something.

Fang ran a hand through his hair, man, how messed up did you have to be to wish for something like that?

It was times like this, times when he let his head drift and his emotions go, that he couldn't help but feel the smallest bit of rage against Ella; who had had everything the Flock had always dreamed about before this started.

He knew it had always pissed Max off, when Ella would sigh wistfully when she caught sight of their wings or when she'd say "wow, that must be great" when one of them talked about a long flight they'd been forced to partake on. It hadn't really bugged him so much back then, maybe because he'd thought, like most normal people it had been her dream to fly or something but now that he knew Ella's prize for all this was simply to be special…

That irked him a bit.

And it probably would have been more than a bit if he hadn't felt like that before as well.

Not in the same way, of course, seeing as he'd grown up in a dog crate trying to avoid drawing attention to himself, but more recently; like when Max brushed him off in favour of spending more time with the Wonder Boy.

He got that they were together now (how could he not, with all the time they spent staring at each other?) but he was still supposed to be her best friend, her number one, her wingman, wasn't he?

Puff. Yeah, right.

With a sigh Fang rolled onto his arm and closed his eyes, only to have them flash open again when the image of another brown haired, blonde eyed girl appeared in his mind's eye.

Maya. How could he have forgotten her? So like Max but so… not.

He smiled a little and thought about her singing. As cliché as it sounded he thought her voice was enchanting, even when she got muddled and started making up the lyrics as she went. He knew for a fact that Max's voice could shatter glass if she tried to hit a high note.

Her personality was different too, though he'd known that even from back when they'd first met, when she'd offered to cook for the Flock. The black highlights and makeup had also been a hint.

He'd been surprised to see her here originally, especially sitting there, in a skirt no less, singing softly to Ella and painting her nails.

He'd been cautious at first, trying to analyze her from looks alone, see if she was a threat or if she knew anything, but, much to his surprise, he couldn't get a read on her, unlike Max how he could nearly quote every time she opened her mouth.

It was something he found he liked.

Breathing deeply Fang relaxed, his mind turning over whether or not he should maybe talk to Maya when she woke up. After all, Max certainly was sitting around hung up on him; why should he do the same for her?

* * *

**Yo, another chapter down!**

**Thanks for Reviews goes to: xx-Twisted Fantasy-xx, Those Who Dell In Heaven, Alexis Fowl and darkdoll25! **

**Sincerely,**

**BlakRoseGirl666**


End file.
